This quiz inspired me to revisit the abolition of the Nepalese monarchy, which I remember, and read about the royal massacre of 2001, about which I had absolutely no idea. The story is nuts.
Absolute monarchies are frankly no better than dictators but I have to say that constitutional monarchies can work well. I like a system where politicians run the country but are not the head of state, it stops the power going to their heads (admittedly not always!). As long as the monarch is the head of state but has little or no political influence (and compared to many large corporations and individuals that noone voted for, she doesn't) then I have no problem with that. I'd far rather have the queen as my head of state than almost any politician I can think of. No system is perfect but constitutional monarchies on the whole seem to be a better way of keeping the egos in check. Power corrupts, etc...
I agree, a constitutional monarchy is not at all bad. Although it does cost money, all the pomp and grandeur is good for tourism. So I don't think it's a bad thing.
Interesting debate here. I think there are good arguments for a ceremonial monarch, but I don't really buy the idea that they are good for tourism. People aren't going to say "I think I'll visit the UK for my holiday because it is a monarchy". We have castles and palaces that result from the monarchy and are tourist attractions, but would abolition of the monarchy really make them less valuable? Probably not. While it would be pretty ridiculous for a country like France or the USA to start a monarchy now, I do however think that if a head of state is introduced who is directly elected democratically, they will have a mandate to run the country however they want (something Queen Elizabeth II does not have and has never thought she had). And a ruler should have to put their decisions before a parliament in the knowledge that it is the parliament, not them, who holds sovereignty. We could make the Prime Minister head of state, but the formalities involved would likely distract them even
further from running the country. Another alternative is to have no head of state like Switzerland, but if the monarchy were abolished I don't think that would happen. People calling monarchy a waste of money should remember that whatever might replace it would quite possibly cost just as much, or more.
@waste of money (wether you agree with monarchies or not). There are millions going into elections in america, I dont know the figures by heart. But at one point I heard a figure, and that was just a portion for a small thing, running for governor and what they spend in a week or specific region, cant remember. But I can only remember I was in utter utter shock! The good that could ve been done with that money! Instead of spending it on some popularity contest for their ego's.
and once they are elected, there isnt enough money for good causes.
really the whole world seems like a poularity contest. Time and money are spend on looks and (false) appearances/image. Instead on things that matter, people want to look cool instead of being nice..
I ll stop here, cause there is too much to mention
Regardless of being for or against(or not caring). The argument that something is rare and therefor is wrong is flawed. The masses arent allways right (especially when on one hand you have people that shout hard and on the other hand sheep that prefer to follow instead of think for themselves. You allready see that interaction in elementary school. Like one guy starts to pick one others, and the rest follow. Does that make it the right behavior? No absolutely not)
the best things usually the things that isnt like anything else. Every inventiins come from someone that wanted to do things differently than had been done before (and indeed the masses usually oppose it at first, until it is considered normal and then it is weird you dont have them (cars tv's etc)
again none of this is about monarchy or not. Only about if something is the minority that that would mean it is the bad/wrong thing. (And more often than not it is not)
Good question, these aren these all the monarchies in the world? Also, it would be interesting to make a difference between symbolic monarchies and absolute monarchies.
Yes, true. If we're not going to trifle about actual titles, then many dictatorships around the world function just like monarchies with absolute monarchs and hereditary rule. North Korea, for instance, is closer to being a monarchy in practice than Great Britain. The only thing that makes many of these countries monarchies is that they have some twat living in a castle who calls himself king. But the twat at the Vatican calls himself Pope and claims to speak directly to God, rather than simply getting his authority from Him. So, there's a difference.
Ah... the countries in the world where it's still mandated by law to worship some inbred rich family. Keeping Up With the Kardashians may be a bit of a cultural embarrassment but at least it's not written in to the constitution that we have to keep it on the air. I guess that's progress?
Been a few months since I last took this quiz. Somehow managed to miss the Vatican despite the conversation we were having last time about the appropriateness of its inclusion on the list. Guess I should have remembered it was on here even if that's a bit odd. Only other ones I missed were Japan and the two land-locked South African countries.
It's not required in all countries that have them to "worship" the royal family, or even to respect them. There are plenty of republicans in the UK for example, such as myself, and plenty of people are pretty vocal about their dislike of monarchies.
I wouldn't recommend trying the same thing in Saudi Arabia or Thailand though.
You are required to swear an oath of allegiance to the monarch and their descendants if you want to become a citizen, or to serve in certain public duties. Maybe people just lie when they swear the oath. Personally, I think people shouldn't be required to do so.
What are you talking about? They're there just for symbollic reasons. They have little to no influence in the government whatsoever. At least in Europe that is. Keeping Up With the Kardashians is made for entertainment. Why would you feel embarassed by a TV show? It's not a representation of a whole country, just of a stupid family (which is kinda foreign BTW).
Even in the countries you could name where the monarchies are figureheads, they still have access to enormous piles of money that they didn't earn and are often protected by certain laws from at least some forms of criticism or disrespect. The media are often limited in what they can show or say about them.
The embarrassing thing about the Kardashians or other reality TV shows is not that all Americans are like them, but that enough Americans are interested in watching television shows about them that they are still on the air. They do nothing of value and serve no useful purpose but enough people are still fascinated by them that they get to keep their prominent place in society. That last sentence could apply to any of the families previously mentioned.
ALL forms of government can be criticised from one or more angles. In the USA, for example, you can't become president without having access to huge pots of money and currying favour with lobby groups who have huge pots of money. Are you saying that Dubya was elected (twice!) because he was the best person out of 350 million citizens to lead the USA? Of course he wasn't; he had access to huge pots of money (which he didn't earn). As an Australian I'm a republican, but as a Brit I'm happy with the monarchy as it is. It brings in huge amounts of tourists, particularly from the USA and I quite enjoy the traditions that go along with having a monarch.
"the most disgusting corrupt and greedy form of government ever conceived by man kind"?
Well, we're full of hyperbole aren't we? There's no doubting that there is greed and corruption in America's capitalist system, but you make it sound like anything would be better than what we have now, and that's ridiculous.
But in the US, the president runs the country. In most monarchies, at least those in Europe, the monarch has no significant role in the running of the country. It's not written in the Constitution that the richest bloke gets the job, but that's still what happens because it takes vast sums of money to win an election. A cap on the amount of cash any party is allowed to spend on electioneering, as exists in many other countries, would go some way to levelling the playing field. After all, the idea is to get the best person for the job, not the person from the richest family.
^but claiming over and over against to be really, really rich even though you are a failed businessman who has gone through multiple bankruptcies and is afraid to let anyone see your tax returns lest they find out what a transparent fraud you are, that seems to be helpful.
Inbred? There are several members of the royal families in Europe who have married people outside them. Honestly, I'm not a supporter of monarchy, but if the people like it, then that's totally OK with me.
If you spent 3 weeks drinking your own urine and then yesterday had a clean glass of orange juice you're still not going to have a healthy set of kidneys.
Laws like the Treason Act (along with probably loads of others) should obviously be abolished. But... @kalbahamut, restrictions on the media when reporting about the royals? The problem with media focus on the royal family at least in the UK isn't that there is not enough. And nobody with more than a few million pounds really earned it by themselves.
I obviously didn't mean that there was too little coverage. It's not about the volume of coverage but the content that is allowed. And I'm not just talking about Britain, either. Look at all those in Thailand in jail for criticizing the king. Or in a ditch in Saudi Arabia.
I have had a look at what has happened with the Thai monarchy and yes you are right in that case. I assumed that when you stated it was mandated by law to worship the royal families you were being hyperbolic; in fact this is literally the case in Thailand. And as you can probably imagine I never meant to defend the Saudi monarchy either (though there it is not mandated by law to worship the royal family). My interest lies mainly in the monarchies of some of the most democratic countries where the monarchies really are figureheads. Ones such as the UK, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands (I could go on). I don't know of many significant privileges the monarchies of these countries receive that result in people being given criminal punishment.
As for the thing about the money they receive, I could indeed use a fairly plausible definition of "earning" money and explain why Bill Gates didn't earn his, though the argument would come across as Marxist. Perhaps a more helpful line to go down would be comparing how much money monarchs receive compared to other heads of states. The main problem with this is that the actual money these people receive tends to fade into insignificance when the expenses or police protection they receive is factored in. Including or excluding this the money they have that is paid by the taxpayer would probably still be paid to any other head of state.
Haven't you as well? The Queen does actually do stuff as part of her role as Queen, and my understanding is that if she abdicated she would no longer have access to the money (though in practice she would as one of her close relatives would become the monarch).
No, I haven't at all. The queen did nothing to earn her money other than emerge from her mother's birth canal. She was wealthy and entitled to a life of enormous excess and privilege from the moment she had her umbilical cord cut. Since then, she's done pathetically little to deserve the money wasted on her extravagant and ridiculous lifestyle. The arguments I've seen put forward for the good charitable work she has done or the benefits she gives to the British economy are laughably, pathetically weak. But it wouldn't matter; even if she was the most extraordinarily hard-working noble-hearted woman in history, and she's not, she still did nothing to earn her wealth or privilege. She was born into it. If she did less work or spent fewer hours waving at the commoners she would not get a pay cut.
I *suppose* you could argue that Gates was also born into privilege- he was born in the USA, for one thing. The most prosperous, technologically-advanced, resource-rich country in the world at the time, where entrepreneurial opportunities abounded and the technology that he would go on to refine and popularize was mostly invented. Fortuitous.
He was also largely gifted his staggering intellect and inventiveness and his propensity for diligence, hard work, and competitive drive through some combination of genetics and environment. And was privileged enough to attend Harvard University, though he dropped out, he was still surrounded by other brilliant and inventive people.
The economic size and strength of the country he was born into helped guarantee the commercial success of the products he invented.
So, yeah, you could make that point.
Still, his wealth came about as a direct results of his actions in life. This is how most understand the word "earn."
@kal, one thing I agree with you on: British Royals do nothing to deserve whatever wealth they have. Despite leaving the British Royal family and being such disgraces to the family, Meghan and Harry still get money from the House of Windsor, no matter what the Queen does or can do.
I can't speak for anyone else but I like having an opportunity to read the instructions without losing valuable time on the clock. Wasted seconds are points lost!
@ander but why would you even take the quiz then (if you, not you but you know ;), are gonna look up the answer anyway... no point then. You might aswell just read an encyclopedia
^ You'd think so, but apparently there are lots of people that do look up the answers. To me that seems like a very strange thing to do when it is supposed to be a quiz.
Looking at this list now, the most amazing thing to me is the surprising lack of monarchies left in Africa. Just Morocco and the tiny kingdoms of Lesotho, Swaziland and Tonga.
Tonga is in Oceania. That reduces the number of monarchies in Africa to 3. I'm not surprised though, because most African countries are relatively new, being formed after 1950 for the first time.
LIving down under is good. We are a constitutional monarchy with the Queen as Sovereign. She has a "substitute" of sorts, they being the Governor-General.
The Queen's Royal style and title in Australia is Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.
Taken from: http://www.royal.gov.uk/monarchandcommonwealth/australia/australia.aspx
No, he was duly elected. He's aparently head of a "royal" family (quote marks according to Wikipedia), but it has not much to do with his political function.
No need to type all the countries in the world ;) plus if you dont know some that is fine. It is not about scoring 100% in whichever way possible but testing your knowledge.
the time seems fine to me, you do the ones you know and have a bit ov time left for some educated guesses. Not a typing contest without time to think and not so long that hou can just randomly put loads of countries in without rhyme or reason.
An interesting observation I posted above (it was deleted because the user who started the thread was deleted): Of the 17 countries listed as full democracies by the democracy index at the time, 9 were monarchies. This number has since changed to 10/20.
Many comments touting that the strongest and most successful governments still have constitutional monarchs. I am wondering whether that is any causal relationship though. I suspect it's just a coincidence. Western Europe has the most successful democracies, and also has a history of monarchies, but I don't think the former is really the result of the latter. The US's current quandary is the result of a culture that is rotting from the inside, owing mostly to greed and bigotry. I don't see how that has anything to do with not having a monarch. I'm sure some grad student has written an interesting paper on the subject. To the internet!
I think it is because the strongest and most successful governments are generally the oldest ones (i.e. countries where it is difficult to bring down the government haven't had the government brought down in a while). Monarchy is an older form of government than a modern democratic republic, so the most stable governments tend to be disproportionately likely to be constitutional monarchies.
The USA has the oldest still-in-use written constitution in the world and has had a remarkably stable and long-continuous government, more than many other countries that most people think of as older which in fact have undergone multiple revolutions, coups, or reorganizations in recent history and so shouldn't really be thought of as old. Great Britain managed to stay out of the revolutions that swept across Europe in the 1800s but that makes them more the exception than the rule.
You're right I suppose, though the USA can also be said to be an exception to the rule rather than the rule because of how early it became independent and how rich it was destined to be because of its huge amount of natural resources. Also the fact that its native population was small enough compared to its immigrant population that the native population could be oppressed effectively, ensuring that they couldn't overthrow the government. Perhaps it is more to do with the fact that something needs to be going badly wrong internally in a country to persuade sufficiently many people to take part in a revolution. The Netherlands and Belgium were occupied by the Nazis in the Second World War, for example, but the population had no reason to start a revolution after the Nazis were gone and what was seen as the original government was restored.
Not sure the revolutions of the 1800s had much effect on the number of monarchies in Europe, France excepted. I suspect the numbers actually increased in the 19th century (Bulgaria, Belgium, Greece etc). It was the world wars that did for them. The key to Britain's retention of the monarchy was getting the revolutions in early, not avoiding them - leading to a more gradual process reducing the monarch's powers to become a figurehead only. I'm a republican at heart - in part because of the personal privilege - but I can see that the system has its advantages.
Which has precisely zero relevance to Norway's 21st century constitutional arrangements - which was the point of this exchange and the subject of the quiz. But yeh, good point aside.
Monarchies may be archaic remnants of our ruling class of inbred dimwits, but they're vital for tourism. That's why France and Italy barely have any tourists.
Unless you mean Sabah for Kuwait as the last name, please update. King Sabah al-Sabah of Kuwait died this year (2020). The Emir of Kuwait is now Nawaf al-Sabah
But i'm suprised that Tonga is monarchy! lol
and once they are elected, there isnt enough money for good causes.
really the whole world seems like a poularity contest. Time and money are spend on looks and (false) appearances/image. Instead on things that matter, people want to look cool instead of being nice..
I ll stop here, cause there is too much to mention
the best things usually the things that isnt like anything else. Every inventiins come from someone that wanted to do things differently than had been done before (and indeed the masses usually oppose it at first, until it is considered normal and then it is weird you dont have them (cars tv's etc)
again none of this is about monarchy or not. Only about if something is the minority that that would mean it is the bad/wrong thing. (And more often than not it is not)
Been a few months since I last took this quiz. Somehow managed to miss the Vatican despite the conversation we were having last time about the appropriateness of its inclusion on the list. Guess I should have remembered it was on here even if that's a bit odd. Only other ones I missed were Japan and the two land-locked South African countries.
I wouldn't recommend trying the same thing in Saudi Arabia or Thailand though.
The embarrassing thing about the Kardashians or other reality TV shows is not that all Americans are like them, but that enough Americans are interested in watching television shows about them that they are still on the air. They do nothing of value and serve no useful purpose but enough people are still fascinated by them that they get to keep their prominent place in society. That last sentence could apply to any of the families previously mentioned.
Well, we're full of hyperbole aren't we? There's no doubting that there is greed and corruption in America's capitalist system, but you make it sound like anything would be better than what we have now, and that's ridiculous.
You don't think Bill Gates earned his own money?
He was also largely gifted his staggering intellect and inventiveness and his propensity for diligence, hard work, and competitive drive through some combination of genetics and environment. And was privileged enough to attend Harvard University, though he dropped out, he was still surrounded by other brilliant and inventive people.
The economic size and strength of the country he was born into helped guarantee the commercial success of the products he invented.
So, yeah, you could make that point.
Still, his wealth came about as a direct results of his actions in life. This is how most understand the word "earn."
very few of these have true monarchy governments
The Queen's Royal style and title in Australia is Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.
Taken from: http://www.royal.gov.uk/monarchandcommonwealth/australia/australia.aspx
Tuiatua Tupua Tamasese Efi is their constitutional monarch...
http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/120795/restored-monarchies
the time seems fine to me, you do the ones you know and have a bit ov time left for some educated guesses. Not a typing contest without time to think and not so long that hou can just randomly put loads of countries in without rhyme or reason.
Haitham bin Tariq Al Said